What is the first thing that comes to mind when we think of culture? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, culture is defined as, “the beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular society, group, place, or time.” It also defines culture as, “a way of thinking, behaving, or working that exists in a place or organization.” Between these two definitions, we learn culture is more than just where we are from or how we were raised, it also includes the way we think or act.
Now I am sure you are asking yourself, how does culture relate to marriage and family? Well if you think about it the family we each grow up in is sort of like our place of origin. We often learn how to think and act from the family environment we grew up in. We learn how to act, what is right or wrong and how to interact with others from our family experiences! In my family growing up I learned so many things from our family culture! We had a culture of hard work, noticing the needs of others and helping them, being nice to our siblings and parents, having family meals together every day, and enjoying life by laughing and spending quality time together. These were things I learn from my family culture that I feel have made a positive impact on me and many of my other siblings. Although there were a lot of wonderful and positive things about my family culture there were also several negative things I learned as well. As many families do we often argued and fought with siblings or parents. We learned that when there was a problem or conflict between two people to just hold it in, culturally it was wrong to talk through or communicate issues so we learned to hold them in rather than work through the problem together. These things I learned from my family culture have made it hard for me to communicate with others and resolve problems and have often led me to become contentious with roommates or other people I am around.
We all learn good and bad family cultures from the environments we grow up in. As Elder William K. Jackson in his talk entitles “The Culture of Christ” stated, “In most man-made cultures,” or families, “there is found both good and bad, constructive and destructive.” The question is what are we going to do with the good or bad things we learn from our family cultures? He goes on to say, “virtually all conflict and chaos would quickly fade if the world” or family members, ”would only accept its original culture, the one we all possessed not so very long ago, …, It is the greatest of all cultures and comes from the great plan of happiness, authored by God and championed by Christ. It unites rather than divides. It heals rather than harms.” This quote so clearly states that as we let go of the negative parts of our family cultures it will make room for us to let in more Christlike or Godly cultures or ways of being. We will find more joy and fulfillment in our relationships with our family members and others that we associate with each day.
We don’t have to be defined by the negative parts of our family cultures! I think it is important to keep the good cultures we grew up with as we get older and start our own families but remember that we don’t have to bring the bad as well! In my life, I have brought my family culture of cooking as a family into my life as a college student even though I am normally just cooking for myself. This is a culture I cherish and hope to someday implement in my future family culture. Other cultures such as poor conflict resolution skills are things I am working to change within myself. This change for me has been pretty hard and I often mess up and fall back into old habits that I learned at home but I know I can do it! We do not have to do exactly what the families did growing up.
What are some positive or negative cultures you grew up within your family and how have they made an impact on your life?
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